Tag Archives: Grounding

Hollywood celebrities have a reputation for espousing a sort of prepackaged, fast-food version of politically correct “liberal” issues, as if they buy a kit of personal convictions off the shelf at Whole Foods. It includes environmental concerns, usually exaggerated and often wrong; rejection of “all things corporate” including pharmaceuticals and biotech, with a corresponding embrace of alternative medicine, organic agriculture, and “empowered individual” philosophies like home birth. Then there are the outliers who go the other way toward full alt-right with an imagined superior insight into world affairs. They tend to reject history and science in favor of conspiracy mongering and alternative science, be it the young Earth, the flat Earth, or calling us all sheeple for believing in the standard model of the universe.

Interestingly, anti-vaccination is found in both camps. Left-leaning antivaxxers tend to reject it because it’s not a natural healing method, and right-leaning antivaxxers think it’s an evil government program of enforced mercury poisoning. It increasingly seems that a rational, level-headed, science-literate Hollywood celebrity is as rare as a truly good movie.

So here my list of top 10 celebrities, 2017 edition, who contribute to the Endarkenment by abusing their notoriety to spread misinformation far and wide:

#10 – Shaq and the NBA Flat Earthers

Former player Shaquille O’Neal and current NBA basketball players Kyrie Irving, Wilson Chandler, and Draymond Green have all expressed their belief that the Earth is flat, but I put them all the way down at #10 because it’s not clear that all four literally believe this. They may just be trolling. But whether they are or not, they do genuinely influence a huge number of young people, including some demographics where education is not necessarily a life priority. Guys, if you want to inspire kids to achieve and succeed, you’re doing it wrong.

#9 – Michael Phelps

I include him as a representative of the many athletes and celebrities who loudly and proudly promote cupping, the overtly pseudoscientific technique of suctioning great round hickeys into the skin by rupturing capillaries. A lot of trainers sell this because it costs nothing to administer, requires no training, and they can charge whatever they want for it; and since it’s unregulated, they make a vast array of claims for whatever workout benefits they say it confers. Usually, it just happens to solve whatever that athlete’s complaint of the day is. Phelps proudly shows off these ugly bruises, as do many other athletes and celebrities, and has even posted pictures of himself getting it done on his Instagram. Sellers have even come up with a sciencey-sounding name for it to impress the scientifically illiterate: “myofascial decompression”.

A few days ago I was alerted to a short video on Youtube about something called “Earthing“, which is something to do about humans getting energy from the Earth (and I’m not talking about geothermic energy either).

Here is the short video that I watched:

Now the first claim in this video says this:

So we all know the sun’s energy is crucial for good health.

This is true. The sun’s light is necessary for the production of Vitamin D inside of our skin, which is necessary for our bodies. Of course to much exposure can also led to the production of skin cancer too…

The video then goes on to claim this:

But did you know that the Earth’s energy is also crucial for good health? When we make direct contact with the surface of the Earth, our bodies receive a charge of energy that makes our bodies feel better, fast. This is called “Earthing.”

Where is Mr. “Pseudoscience”?

Now this is where we get into the pseudoscience part.

Human beings do not receive energy from the Earth, and there are no studies that show this. In fact, other then from eating and drinking food, we can’t receive energy by any actual means.

If you are outside and you “feel” like you are receiving energy from the Earth, what you’re experiencing is not the receiving of energy from the Earth, but a placebo effectin which you only think you’re receiving energy from the Earth.

The next claim in the video states that:

Throughout history people were always “naturally” absorbing the Earth’s energy, but in today’s world we live most of our lives inside, and even when we do go outside, we usually wear shoes, which prevent us from connecting.

Back in the “good old days” working outside was far more common then it is today. This is because most people tended to have jobs that required working outside. It was also far more common for people back then to die in their 40’s and 50’s than it is today as well.

People simply didn’t live as long in the past as they do today. The reason for that is because of a combination disease and the occasional lack of food. While a lack of food could be a hard thing to prevent back then, one of the things that helped prevent some diseases then (and now) however is shoes. Shoes help prevent us from cutting our feet on things like sticks and rock, and then getting infections from stepping in bacteria and parasite infested water and animal droppings.

Besides all of this, there is still no proof what so ever that we have ever been able to absorb energy from the Earth through our skin.

This claim makes it appear that we better off in the past when more of us were barefooted, when in reality the exact opposite is true.